(writen 6-04)

This was the closest thing to a romance novel I have probably ever read, although I think it has literary value. I heard that when it came out it had some of the raciest scenes - I guess the public was ready though because it was a best-seller. Oh, the couples of Tarbox, with its streets ironically named Charity and Purity and Chastity, with the big church on the hill. Piet sure is a ladies' man, a trait which causes his downfall in the end. Is happiness worth two broken families? Maybe.

Updike's descriptions are superb:

"For the forms of the country club they substituted informal membership in a circle of friends and participation in a cycle of parties and games... they settled in unthought-of places, in pastoral mill towns like Tarbox, and tried to improvise here a fresh way of life. Virtue was no longer sought in temple or marketplace but in the home - one's own home, and then the homes of one's friends." 114

Meaning of life, by Freddy:
"We're all put here to humanize each other." 158

"[Piet] saw plunging, how plausible it was to die, how death, far from invading earth like a meteor, occurs on the same plan as birth and marriage and the arrival of the daily mail." 449